One of the prompts asks you for the country - the UK, where the AppleCare Protection Plan was bought.

What follows is the message "Our records indicate that the service you are trying to use is not available in your location".

Or in English, "Our support service is broken, just like our Apple TV".

So why the rant?

Apple represented a dying breed of companies who believed that technology is an enabling thing that makes people's lives easier. But now it seems they are falling into the same trap of general sloppiness that blights the computer industry and the internet the world over.